


until the morning comes

by strawberrytozaki



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/F, Fluff, idk how this is 10k words, it's not angsty at all, kind of, nayeon wants to understand her, oh my god they were roommates, sana is a philosophy major
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberrytozaki/pseuds/strawberrytozaki
Summary: nayeon falls in love with sana the way anyone does; slowly, and then all at once. it starts with an inkling of a thought and, suddenly, she's knee deep in a type of love that she has no idea what to do with, because loving Sana is as inevitable as the sun setting and the seasons changing. she loses count of the times her confession could be uttered into the air, the times she holds it in instead.until, one day, she doesn't.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Minatozaki Sana, Myoui Mina/Park Jisoo | Jihyo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 258





	until the morning comes

There’s a gentle silence that fills the space of the small dorm room. It’s broken every so often, by the scratch of a pencil on paper, or fingers on a keyboard, and then it’s mended all the same and the air feels soft once more. Nayeon reads a chunk of notes from her laptop, rereads it when she realizes she wasn’t actually paying attention, and then lets out a sigh of frustration. It’s the first harrowing sound that the dorm room cannot recoat in silence and she can feel Sana perk up at the disturbance.

“What’s your view on determinism?” Sana asks. Nayeon glances over the top of her laptop to see her roommate laying on her bed as she absentmindedly doodles on her notebook. She smiles.

“I’m more of a compatibilist.”

Sana doesn’t answer, Nayeon assumes it was an offhanded question, but then her laptop is being moved away and Sana is looking at her with bright eyes and the same intoxicating smile that seems to take permanent residence on her face. Her heart flutters.

“That’s boring, Nayeonnie,” Sana sighs. Nayeon rolls her eyes, pulls her laptop back in place and is ready to ignore whatever Sana says next because it’s nearing three in the morning and she’s kind of on a roll with her studying. It lasts for less than a minute, because as she’s typing out another point on the rate of recidivism among youth offenders, Sana pulls her laptop out of her reach and Nayeon whines. She’s about to open her mouth, push Sana away or _something_ , but Sana beats her to it as she sits in front of her. “Humour me,” she says it like a question and Nayeon can’t look away from her twinkling eyes. “We’ve been studying in silence for, like, three hours. I learn better when I’m being stimulated.” There’s an innuendo in plain sight and even the faux innocence of Sana’s tone can’t hide it. Nayeon groans, pretends to be annoyed, but she can’t hide the smile on her face.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Noted. Now, determinism, or free will?”

Nayeon glances back at her laptop, watches the blinking cursor point mocking her. She knows if she declined to answer again Sana would let her go. But she looks back at the girl in front of her, sees the sleepy, muted version of the excitement she holds for everything she experiences, and Nayeon figures she could use a break.

“I can’t choose,” she answers honestly. “Compatibilism makes the most sense to me, from what I’ve read.” Sana squints her eyes at her and moves impossibly closer. She looks impressed that Nayeon even knows what _compatibilism_ is and Nayeon feels her face flush because she wonders if, somehow, Sana knows she googles philosophy facts just to impress her. Nayeon gulps. “Free will seems inevitable, but there is also inevitability in how free will is, and will continue to be, put to use, if you look at human nature. Compatibilism is the best of both worlds.”

“Yes, but,” Sana pauses, wracks her brain for the right words. Nayeon loves seeing her roommate like this; loves hearing the passion in her voice as she discusses the intricacies of the mind and the nature of people and the basis of philosophy. Nayeon thinks she could listen to Sana talk for days, thinks she could admire the spark in her eyes that lights every time someone asks her about her about existentialism for the rest of her life. It might be the stress of her upcoming midterms, or the sleep deprivation finally settling in, and she’s not quite sure why she’s admitting this to herself, but sometimes Nayeon thinks she could love Sana, simply because Sana loves so openly and it’s contagious. It’s terrifying. “If you had to choose, had to decide which you would want to live by, which would it be?” Sana finally asks. She looks at Nayeon like the older girl’s next words would be the most important words she’ll ever hear and Nayeon swallows the pressure down thickly.

“Is there a point in living if not for by own free will?”

Sana grins. Nayeon feels like she could fly.

“Don’t you think there’s comfort to be found in determinism, though?” Sana sighs. She props herself against the wall and sprawls her legs across Nayeon’s bed. It causes her curtain to open slightly and the image of Sana bathed in moonlight is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. Sana’s looking at her curiously, and sometimes Nayeon hates that she never knows what answer the younger girl wants from her. She pulls her legs under her and leans forward unconsciously, because Sana is the sun and Nayeon is just another hopeless planet being guided into her orbit.

“There’s comfort to be found in the idea that whatever I choose to do is my choice and my choice alone,” she counters. Sana smiles again. Nayeon begins to think that she could say anything, and Sana would think it’s correct. 

“That’s true,” Sana concedes, “but, what about the idea that some things will never go wrong, because they’re destined to go right? Because every event in your life was a culmination of events. Isn’t it nice to have something that allows you to live with a certain extent of inevitability?” She ponders, but she’s still gazing into the distance and Nayeon knows she’s not finished. “Have you ever felt like you had no control over your life, or that any decision you came to in a situation would end badly?” Sana looks at Nayeon then, and there’s something in her eyes that Nayeon can’t pinpoint, so she lets out a shaky breath and says _no,_ because she’s never thought about it before. Sana smiles. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I have, I think,” she laughs. “I’ve felt like that a lot, actually. Sometimes I like to pretend that everything I’ve done until this point has been predetermined, like no matter what decision I made, it was meant to happen to lead me here and, eventually, to happiness.” A pause. Nayeon feels heavy hearted at the implications of Sana’s hardships, ones that she’s never quite eluded to because Sana is an enigma of open books and closed doors and her existence made Nayeon dizzy if she thought about it for too long. Then Sana’s speaking again, an offhanded, “or whatever,” and Nayeon’s train of thought is derailed.

Nayeon snorts, Sana shoves her, and the weird tenseness she felt for a moment dissipates into nothing.

“Right,” Nayeon nods. She knows she could agree, because in a way, she does, but the look Sana gives her says that she’s hoping for another argument and she finds herself making another point anyway. “But, if everything is predetermined, how can we hold people accountable for their wrongdoings? What about criminals, then? Do they deserve punishment if the events of the universe were meant to lead up to the point of crime?” Sana gives another smile. Nayeon finds herself counting them, can’t seem to care about the implications behind it.

“Well, it’s all part of the plan, isn’t it?” Sana sits up, so close into Nayeon’s personal space that the older girl forgets to breathe for a moment. “Everything happens for a reason, and all that. A criminal is meant to commit the crime, so they can face the punishment, set precedence for the future. If the world had been created differently, laws would be different, human nature would be different, criminals in this world would be saints in another. Crime is inevitable in any timeline.”

“And they victim? They’re meant to be wronged?”

“Never. You’re looking at it through necessitarianism,” Sana explains. She doesn’t know what that word means, _necessitarianism_ , knows Sana would explain if she asked, knows Sana wouldn’t think any less of her, really, but she feels like she’s holding her weight in this conversation and she likes feeling like she’s impressing the other girl. She figures she can google this once they go back to studying, anyway. “Being victimized isn’t an action to be determined or acted on,” Sana continues. “It’s the consequence of the actions of someone else. There is no rule of nature that says victims need to be wronged, or that criminals need to commit crime, but crime itself is a necessary evil in the perspective of societal progression, don’t you think? How would we come to know about things like psychopathy if not for crimes committed by psychopaths?” She counters. There’s fire in her eyes and Nayeon thinks she’d let herself be burned if it meant allowing herself closer to the source.

Nayeon sighs, a noise of defeat, wishes she could formulate a better argument because Sana thrives off of the back and forth debates they often have and Nayeon always loses. She wishes she could be a better contender, for once, just once. Sana puts a hand on her knee, pulls her out of her thoughts. She’s smiling, Nayeon counts five, and then she’s moving back toward her own bed.

“Thank you,” Sana says. Honest and genuine and it sets flame to Nayeon’s heart. “You’re one of the only people that puts up with me like that.”

Nayeon isn’t sure what to say, but Sana has already pulled her notebook back onto her lap and she looks content and Nayeon figures Sana’s never needed words to understand her, anyway. She looks down at her laptop and types _necessitarianism_ into the google search bar. Morning light bleeds into their room through the crack in the curtain that Nayeon never readjusted and Sana is fast asleep before the sun kisses her skin.

\----------

Something changes after that night. Not a big, drastic change like one might expect. Not a sudden wall of insecurity put up between the two of them. Rather, it feels like something fell into place. They study in their dorm together for the rest of the week, and when Sana does eventually need a change of environment, she begs Nayeon to go to the library with her. She doesn’t need to. Beg, that is, because Nayeon was already packing her things into her backpack before the first _please_ rolled off Sana’s tongue.

They don’t get to see each other much after that, because it’s a whirlwind of last-minute study groups with people from their courses and their midterm schedules really don’t match up but Sana leaves sticky notes telling Nayeon to have a good day and it’s more than enough. They decide to go to a party once midterms are finished and it’ll be the first one they’ve ever gone to together and Nayeon is kind of really excited. Sana is a homebody, and so is Nayeon, so they’ve gotten to know each other more than most roommates with how often they both occupy their dorm. But Nayeon would be lying if she said she isn’t excited to see Sana outside of their little bubble.

She thinks she might’ve royally fucked up when Sana walks out of their bathroom and Nayeon realizes it’s the first time in the two months they’ve known each other that she’s seeing Sana in something other than pajamas or a casual outfit when they go out for coffee between classes.

_Holy..._ “Shit,” Nayeon mumbles under her breath as she takes in everything that is Minatozaki Sana. Sana laughs, light and airy and confident and Nayeon couldn’t pick her jaw up if she tried. “How did I not know you were this hot?” She jokes, because she might accidentally say something like _I’m in love with you_ if she tries to say anything more serious. Sana shoves her and they laugh, and she feels like she can breathe again.

“What, you don’t think my Pokémon pajamas are sexy?” Sana asks with a pout. Nayeon kind of wants to kiss her. (She doesn’t.)

“No way, those are a major turn-on,” she promises instead, and the playful smile that lights up Sana’s face is enough.

“You’re not so bad yourself, Im,” Sana whistles low and Nayeon blushes despite the fact that it’s a joke. “You clean up nice.” When Nayeon looks up against, ready to fire back some quick-witted flirtatious comment, something in Sana’s eyes says she isn’t joking. Nayeon turns around to grab the bottle of vodka from the fridge and takes a swig before handing it to a smirking Sana.

“Quick pre-game, before we get there,” she offers, and really, Sana doesn’t need to be told twice.

It turns out Sana knows the host, because Sana knows half the fucking campus apparently and Nayeon can only watch in awe as her roommate is greeted by at least fifteen people when they walk into the place. Sana doesn’t let go of her hand the whole time and something in her chest swells. It feels a lot like pride. They’re both already buzzed because they turned their pre-game into a real game, and it explains the way they sway to the music as they walk through the crowd in search of more liquor. Somewhere along the way, Sana twirls her and they pause to dance because Sana _loves this song!_ and who is Nayeon to say no to a pretty girl grinding on her. Especially when said girl is her pretty roommate that she may or may not be falling in love with.

They find Jihyo and Mina in the kitchen and then it’s all hugs and _how were your exams?_ and Sana still hasn’t let go of Nayeon’s hand. Jihyo notices, looks at Nayeon over the rim of her cup with a knowing smile and Nayeon feels herself rolling her eyes before she can stop it. Then Sana and Mina see Momo enter and, inevitably, Jihyo and Nayeon are left to their own devices for a moment as their girl- well, Jihyo’s girlfriend and Nayeon’s… _Sana_ , move to greet their friend.

“You two seem cozy,” Jihyo says as she waggles her eyebrows like an idiot and Nayeon would hit her, really, if she didn’t know Jihyo would hit her back ten times harder.

“Just friends, Hyo,” she mumbles as takes a sip of whatever her friend made her. It’s strong, but the vodka from before was good warmup and Jihyo almost looks sad that she didn’t gag at the taste. _Typical._

“I saw you two dancing,” Jihyo adds. Nayeon glares.

“I dance like that with you all the time.”

“That is such a lie.”

It is. Nayeon pretends it isn’t, because she refuses to let Jihyo ever win easily.

“What’s a lie?” They hear as Jeongyeon slides up next to them. Her hair is messy and her makeup is a little smudged and her eyes are unfocused and-

“Did you and Momo-” Jihyo glances at where the other girl is talking to Sana and Mina, sees a bright red hickey on her neck and then she groans. “You two are disgusting.” Jeongyeon flashes them a grin and downs the rest of the contents of Nayeon’s cup before jolting forward to pull Momo toward the crowd of drunken dancing. Then Mina returns, intertwines her fingers with Jihyo and there’s a look in her eyes that Nayeon does _not_ want to think about, so she turns around to make a new drink while they pull each other to go dance as well.

“You come here often?” Nayeon jumps as the words tickle the shell of her ear, spills vodka on her shirt in the process, but there’s angelic laughter invading her senses and she can’t find it in her to be mad. She looks up at Sana with a glare that holds no weight and snatches the napkin that’s held out to her quickly. “You know, it’s a good thing I like vodka,” Sana says absently. She sounds drunker than she did ten minutes ago and Nayeon wonders if they took shots in that short time. “If you spill some cranberry juice on yourself next, I’ll drink you right up.” Nayeon chokes on her own saliva, looks up at Sana again and sees the girl’s eyes dancing with amusement. She shoves her and laughs when her inebriated state, in addition to her natural clumsiness, causes her to fall back into the counter.

“You are such a perv,” Nayeon grumbles, finally taking a sip of her drink, but there’s a smile pulling at her lips and Sana sees it because she grins ten times wider. Nayeon makes another drink for her and they’re content for the moment, to drink side by side and watch the party unfold before them.

Nayeon can feel Sana glancing at her every so often, doesn’t really understand what it means, but when she finally finishes her drink and throws her cup onto the counter, Sana wraps her fingers around her wrist and Nayeon’s heart flutters when she realizes Sana was _waiting for her._

“You could’ve gone to dance,” Nayeon assures over the loud music. Sana looks at her with a twinkle in her eyes and Nayeon thinks she needs another drink.

“But you’re the one I wanted to dance with.”

_Oh._

She doesn’t say anything, because Sana’s turning her around and pulling their bodies together and Nayeon is drunk enough to lose herself in the music, so she does. She lets herself focus on the pounding bass guiding her movements instead of arms loosely draped around her waist, focuses on the beat that is as familiar as every song from that summer, rather than the way Sana’s hot breath caresses the back of her neck. Then the song changes, and Sana twirls her around, and there’s something in her eyes that Nayeon has never noticed before. Something raw and desperate and it makes her want nothing more than to lean forward and kiss her. The alcohol in her system would make it so easy to explain it away if she was reading the wrong signs, but then there’s a body in between them, Dahyun excitedly pulling them because _Jihyo’s doing body shots!_ and Sana looks like she’s been snapped out of a trance.

But she giggles and she winks, and it makes Nayeon feel a little less crazy about the whole thing.

Seeing Mina do body shots off of her best friend in the middle of a drunken crowd is definitely _not_ what Nayeon had expected to come from the night. Nevertheless, she’s at the front of the chaos, cheering Mina on and recording every second so she could use it against Jihyo in the future. They’re both drunk beyond hope, because when Mina takes the lime from Jihyo’s mouth, she discards it on the floor and hops on the table and then they’re making out and Nayeon, Momo, and Chaeyoung have to form a barrier around them while Jeongyeon and Sana force the crowd of horny college boys to disperse.

Mina and Jihyo pout like toddlers when their friends force them to separate and Nayeon hasn’t stopped laughing in the past fifteen minutes. It’s light and refreshing and, when they finally leave the party as a group of nine drunk girls, Sana holds Nayeon’s hand that isn’t busy keeping Jihyo steady and it feels right.

They try to cram into one booth at the 24-hour diner on campus, and it almost works. They have to keep Mina and Jihyo on opposite sides because the two girls have not stopped trying to jump each other’s bones since they left the party and it’s amusing, really, because they might be the two most uptight girls in their little group and seeing them let loose is something of a rarity. However, keeping them separated means that Momo is shoved onto Jeongyeon’s lap to make room for Chaeyoung, and Jihyo gives Nayeon a devious smirk that has far too much clarity for someone as inebriated as she is, before she squeezes in and forces Nayeon to land on Sana. She lets out a squeak, holds the table to prevent herself from putting any weight on the other girl, but Sana simply laughs and wraps her arms around Nayeon before pulling her down. Nayeon knows she’s as red as a tomato, and she decides that the video of Jihyo laying half-naked while Mina licks salt off of her stomach will be held against the younger girl for the rest of her life. Somewhere in the distance, Dahyun whines as she pulls up a chair, complaining about being older than both Tzuyu and Chaeyoung but still being disrespected. Nayeon doesn’t pay attention, though, not really, because Sana senses that she’s tense, pulls her closer and whispers, “you don’t have to be shy, Nayeonnie.” Her voice sends chills down Nayeon’s spine and she can feel Sana smile against her ear. “Having a pretty girl on my lap is a pleasure.”

Something in her tone feels like a challenge, and Nayeon turns to say something back, something that will have Sana melting into a puddle as she remembers how they danced together, and the look in Sana’s eyes afterwards. She turns, sees something wild in the girl’s expression, like she’s daring Nayeon to do something, and she opens her mouth to speak when-

“ _Oh my god!”_ Mina squeals excitedly. “They have curly fries!” Just like that, the bubble they were suspended in pops. Sana squeezes her hips as she laughs, and Nayeon falls back into her embrace, completely content, because the alcohol wouldn’t let her dwell too much on a lost opportunity anyway.

\---------

Something changes, again, after that night. Their movie marathons on the weekend turn into nights out at bars or going for late night walks that last until the sun kisses the horizon. Sana would tug Nayeon’s hand and put on her best pout to convince Nayeon to change out of her sleepwear and into something that would fight off the chill of the impending winter weather. Nayeon quickly learns that she cannot say no to Sana. They don’t get to hang out as a full group of nine after the party, but they make sure to spend time in small groups whenever time permits. Sadly, for Nayeon, that means she sees Jihyo the most out of everyone that isn’t Sana and the teasing only gets worse from then.

“You are so whipped,” Jihyo laughs obnoxiously loud as Nayeon blows on her coffee. It’s too early, and she’s not nearly caffeinated enough, so the glare she musters is weak at best. “I mean, who researches something as boring as philosophy, just to impress a girl?” She’s fully laughing now, like, high pitched giggles that make her gasp for air and Nayeon looks at Mina with wide eyes.

“If you don’t turn your girlfriend off, I’m going to kill her.”

Mina puts a hand on Jihyo’s shoulder and waits for the girl to catch her breath. She’s looking at her with a fondness in her gaze that Nayeon would make fun of if she didn’t desperately wish someone would look at her like that. (Correction: If she didn’t desperately wish _Sana_ would look at her like that.)

“She hasn’t slept right in three days,” Mina explains as Jihyo finals takes a long sip of her coffee. “She had an assignment due this morning.” Her hysterics make sense, then, and Nayeon decides to let it slide.

“Philosophy isn’t _boring,_ per say,” she argues. She’s not quite sure why, knowing it will likely end in more teasing from both girls, because Mina is a biology major and Jihyo is in architecture and neither of them have too great of a grasp on things that aren’t wholly scientific or numerical.

“I bet your search history is full of, like, Plato and shit,” Jihyo snickers. Mina has enough decency to shoot her a look, Jihyo lacks enough shame to answer it with a shrug.

“I don’t even know why I keep showing up to these coffee meets,” Nayeon sighs. “All you do is make fun of me.” She doesn’t mean it seriously, not really, but she thinks maybe some bit of insecurity she’s been trying to hide seeps through her words because Jihyo straightens in her seat and looks apologetic for once in her life.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Jihyo offers, because serious apologies don’t really have a place in their friendship.

Nayeon smiles, because she _knows_ , but there’s a lingering voice of doubt in her head that bubbles up whenever the topic of Sana is broached, and she doesn’t quite know what to do about it. Then, she shrugs, and the apologetic look in Jihyo’s eyes get stronger, and Mina reaches out to hold her hand and Nayeon _doesn’t even know_ why she’s getting so worked up over a stupid joke. Figures that maybe, _maybe,_ Jihyo kind of hit right on the nail because Nayeon would go to the ends of the Earth just to learn how to put a smile on Sana’s face, and there’s a pit of anxiety in her chest constantly telling her that maybe, most likely, Sana doesn’t think to do the same. She knows it’s not true, at least not to an extent. Because Sana does things that set Nayeon’s heart on fire and Nayeon thinks that’s more than she’ll ever be able to provide for her roommate. Because Sana is the person that has come home after a long day of classes with a bright smile on her face (just for Nayeon, always for Nayeon,) because _you’ll never guess what just happened_ before proceeding to tell Nayeon that she ran into the professor for a course that Nayeon had been desperately trying to get into for the next semester, says that she managed to talk her up and land Nayeon a seat because she knows how much it meant to her. In those moments, when Sana is bright-eyed and radiant with excitement that she wants to share with Nayeon, the older girl thinks she could squash the bitter bug that bites into her heart every time she questions the level of reciprocation in their friendship (relationship? Whatever.)

She doesn’t realize how quiet the table has gotten until the scrape of a chair brings her back to Earth. She looks at Mina and thinks, _this is Sana’s best friend_ , she thinks maybe she’s an idiot because she could get all the answers right here, if she wanted. The words are out of her mouth before she can stop it, not fully registering in her brain until she asks, “does she talk about me?” And then she sees Jihyo’s jaw drop at the bold question and the pit of anxiety turns into a fucking sinkhole and she’s out of her seat before Mina can take a breath. “Actually, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know,” she laughs shakily, because she kind of feels like she could pass out and _god_ , she’s an idiot. “I forgot I’m, uh, late to meet… Joohyun! Yeah, I’ll see you guys later.” And she’s out of the coffee shop so fast she thinks the wind that accumulated behind her could cause a mini tornado.

“I would’ve told her,” Mina sighs into her half empty coffee cup. “If she stayed.”

“She’s a little bit of an idiot,” Jihyo shrugs. “She’ll realize it eventually.”

“Hopefully.”

Nayeon gets home late that night. She ends up _actually_ asking Joohyun to meet up and study because the whole coffee shop thing made her feel like she was suffocating and she doesn’t like taking negative feelings home. It’s nice, as expected. It’s nice, but there’s something missing, and she thinks if you looked closely you could see a Sana-shaped hole in her heart. She realizes that she hasn’t seen her roommate since the previous night and it’s pathetic how much she misses her, really, because they’re independent and they can go a day without seeing each other and Nayeon is _not_ clingy. (When she finally finds an opportunity to wrap up her impromptu study session, she bolts from the library faster than she ever has before.)

She thinks Sana might be sleeping, because it’s late and she has another early morning class tomorrow, and she pretends that the thought doesn’t send a pang through her chest. When she opens the door, though, her heart aches in another way. One that is entirely too familiar when it comes to Sana.

She sees Sana on _her_ bed, curled up in a ball with Nayeon’s comforter wrapping around her shoulders like a cocoon. She sees Sana’s hair tied up in the half-assed way that Nayeon loves to tease her about, sees Sana’s eyes, droopy and tired, flitting side to side as she reads from the book in her hands. (Kierkegaard? Foucault? Nayeon always has trouble keeping up with Sana’s latest interests.) Her eyes land on Sana’s lap, where she’s holding kkaengie, Nayeon’s stuffed rabbit that Sana had playfully stolen from her after a week of living together and _accidentally_ never returned. She could never be mad about it, though, because seeing Sana cuddled up with her childhood toy every time she settled down to read was something that melted Nayeon’s heart a million times over. The soft hum of Sana’s phone playing some sort of lo-fi music, and the even softer glow of Nayeon’s lamp illuminating Sana’s face paint a picture of an angel and Nayeon thinks it may be impossible to _not_ love Sana.

“You’re home,” Sana says, sleepy and excited, and Nayeon’s heart beats to the steady sound of her voice. “I was waiting for-” a yawn, “you.” Only then does Nayeon realize she has yet to close the door behind her, which she’s quick to rectify. Once she does, once she turns back around to greet Sana properly, she sees the taller girl stretching out her limbs and distantly wonders how long Sana had been waiting.

“Hi,” she says with a soft smile when Sana gets up. She still has Nayeon’s comforter around her shoulders and Nayeon thinks it will probably smell like her tonight.

“Hi,” Sana greets back, wraps Nayeon in a hug that has the blanket wound around both of them and she begins to laugh before she can stop it. That’s just what Sana does to her. “I used your bed because my lamp is broken,” she explains, and Nayeon really didn’t need an explanation to begin with.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” she says with a pout, sitting on her bed and ignoring the little bit of sadness she feels when Sana sits on her own instead of joining her.

“I know,” Sana shrugs. “Wanted to.”

And it’s little moments like this, when Sana’s smiling at her across the small expanse of their shared dorm room, with heavy-lidded eyes that are moments away from shutting completely as she succumbs to sleep, where Nayeon feels lighter than ever. It’s little moments like this that the little voice of insecurity at the back of her head withers away to nothing.

\---------

It feels like Nayeon and Sana’s existence in relation to each other is in a constant state of change, progression, evolution, whatever you want to call it. Because every so often, Nayeon finds herself reflecting on the relationship between the two of them, and every so often she finds that they’ve completely broken down more and more barriers with each passing period of time, barriers that she didn’t realize existed. Boundaries fading into nothing as they found ways to weave into each other’s hearts and Nayeon finds that she can’t even be scared by it, because Sana has given her no reason to be scared, has given her every reason to trust her completely, and it feels safe, in a way. It feels like Nayeon can love Sana unabashedly and Sana won’t break her heart in return, like, even if Sana doesn’t love her in the same way, she’ll be able to mend the part of Nayeon that craves a love more than platonic. Someway, somehow, Nayeon thinks she can come out of this unscathed.

She decides not to pursue Sana.

Not for now, at least, because spending time away from the girl over their winter break, where Nayeon went home to the next city over and Sana went home to another country, she realized how achingly sad she would feel if she managed to ruin whatever they had going. Not that Sana would let it be ruined, because Nayeon is half sure that most of Sana’s friends are ex-girlfriends or one-sided crushes that she did not mean to entertain. She likes what they have, anyway, because she doesn’t need Sana to be in love with her to enjoy the warmth that radiates off of her in waves, doesn’t need to call her anything other than _Sana_ to know she’s the first person Sana will greet in the morning, and the last person before she falls asleep. Nayeon has Sana in a way that no one else does, and they don’t need to be anything _more_ for that to continue to be true.

But she considers it.

She considers it when she gets back from the break and Sana, who arrived a day before her, is there waiting with a party hat, a sign that says, ‘ _Welcome home, Nayeonnie!’_ and the brightest smile that Nayeon has ever had the pleasure of seeing. (She still counts them, sometimes, on quiet nights alone in their room when Nayeon can’t stop staring and Sana can’t stop laughing.) Nayeon falls into Sana’s embrace like she’s falling into place and she thinks she can just say it, just say _I’m in love with you,_ and Sana would look at her and say _I know,_ and it would be fine. Instead, she whispers, “I missed you,” into Sana’s hair, and Sana echoes those words back into her ear and this, this is better than fine.

Sana is barely a step away from her when Nayeon’s excitement overpowers all other emotions and she whips out the box from her backpack that’s wrapped and topped with a nice little bow. It’s in pink wrapping paper and Nayeon may or may not have spent an entire two hours finding the exact shade that Sana loves so much.

“Happy belated birthday,” she says then, suddenly shy and nervous and wondering if Sana will even like what she got for her. But Sana’s eyes are warm and watery and, for a fleeting moment, Nayeon wonders if she’s done something wrong until the girl tackles her in another hug and kisses her cheek with a million _thank you_ ’s spilling from her lips. “You haven’t even opened it,” Nayeon chuckles when Sana finally lets her breathe.

“I already know I’ll love it, because it came from you,” Sana says casually, so, _so_ casually that she’s not even looking at Nayeon and the older girl thinks the amount of times her heart has skipped a beat because of Sana is borderline deadly.

It’s a little silver bracelet with a small bunny charm, the gift in the box. Nayeon immediately thought of Sana when she saw it, thought of Kkaengie, who Sana packed away in her suitcase before leaving for Osaka without a second of hesitation, and she thought it was perfect in the moment. But as she watches Sana take it out of the box, carefully, so careful as though it might break if she breathes too hard, Nayeon’s face gets red and she wonders if it’s childish, if Sana would’ve preferred that soft sweater Nayeon had seen instead.

“It looks like you.”

She wasn’t expecting that. Sana looks at her with a smile that is as pure as the clouds in the sky and Nayeon thinks she could collapse. She gets even more red, if that’s possible, and laughs awkwardly.

“Oh, I just- uh, because you like Kkaengie so much, and it reminded me of you and-”

“It’s perfect,” Sana says. She’s looking at the charm with the twinkle in her eyes that Nayeon loves so much and, despite all her insecurities, she can’t find it in herself to doubt Sana’s sincerity. When she manages to look at her again, Sana is busy securing the bracelet around… _her ankle_. She looks up at Nayeon with a cheesy grin that Nayeon tries her best not to react to, because sometimes Sana just likes getting a reaction from her, and sometimes Nayeon likes to avoid giving them. “Thank you,” Sana finally chirps when she realizes she won’t be getting an exasperated sigh from the older girl. “I really do love it.”

_I really do love you,_ Nayeon thinks.

She’s not surprised when Sana walks to their little fridge and pulls out a bottle of vodka and a bottle of cranberry juice. She watches her go, eyes catching the glint of silver clasped around her ankle and she smiles because she really did miss her, so much. And she’s beginning to think Sana missed her just the same.

“To the new year, since we couldn’t spend that together,” Sana says as she slides down to the floor next to Nayeon’s bed. Nayeon joins her, and that’s when she notices the oddly placed New Year’s Eve decorations scattered around the dorm. She smiles, because it’s the most Sana thing ever, and everything about Sana paints a grin on her face.

“You decorated?” Nayeon asks, head lolling to the side as she watches Sana pour the two drinks together in a concoction that Nayeon knows will be much too strong for her. She knows she’ll drink it anyway.

Sana hums, eyebrows furrowed in concentration like she’s handling the most important task in the world and Nayeon can’t help but snap a photo. One of Sana, two of Sana, then three, before she moves on to the little glittery decorations and the sign that Sana made for her.

“Why don’t you ever take photos?” She asks absentmindedly as she scrolls through the ones she got on her phone, thinking of all the moments they’ve shared and how Sana has never once pulled out a camera to capture a sunrise that paints the sky her favourite shade of pink, or the twinkling city lights that leave her breathless. She misses the way Sana smiles at the back of her head.

“I do,” the other girl responds easily.

“I don’t mean selfies.”

Sana laughs. It’s melodic and beautiful and it fills the room like sunlight after a particularly long night.

“ _The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation_ ,” Sana quotes whimsically, Nayeon turns, Sana is already looking at her.

“Who said that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sana shrugs, maybe because she knows it won’t make a difference to Nayeon either way. Nayeon still wishes she would tell her, wants desperately to know even half of what Sana holds in her mind. “All it means is that, I could take a million photos in my momentary desperation to fix this moment as vividly in my memory as possible, but no matter how hard I try, no matter how many photos I have to look back on, no memory will ever compare to what I’m seeing and how I’m feeling now, in this moment.” Nayeon isn’t sure what to say. “And in this moment, I’m with you,” Sana hesitates, takes a long sip from her cup, and then, “and that may be the liveliest sensation I’ve felt yet.”

Nayeon feels breathless, has to sink down on the floor next to Sana before her weak knees give out. Sana has a way with words, can twist Nayeon’s heart into a million knots just by speaking a simple thought into the air and she wonders how she’s survived this long, really. Sana hands her the cup and Nayeon is thankful for the burn to distract her from the heart that is threatening to beat out of her chest and into Sana’s grasp where it belongs.

“I don’t have cool quotes or well-worded explanations, but I hope you know I feel the same.”

Sana kisses her head, laughs and says, _“I know,”_ and Nayeon feels like she’s just confessed, somewhere between the lines. They stay up well into the night catching up, and for the first time, Nayeon begins to notice the way Sana watches her like she’ll disappear if she looks away for too long.

\--------

You learn a lot from living in such close quarters with someone. Nayeon kind of assumed this was the same for every kid in their first year of university. She always figured her friendship with Sana was the product of every dorm room filled with two strangers that were put together by some algorithm with the intention of living together for the next year, maybe more if it went well. She realizes that’s not quite the case, however, because somewhere into the second semester she begins to hear complaints from her friends in her classes about their annoying roommates. She hears about how _Lalisa leaves her clothes everywhere!_ and _Yeri does not shut up, like, ever,_ or she hears about how others don’t speak to their roommates unless it’s necessary and she begins to wonder if her and Sana are somewhat of a rarity.

She never had anything to compare it to, really, because Mina and Momo are roommates with each other (they played a game of rock, paper, scissors, and Sana lost,) and Jihyo is roommates with Jeongyeon (those three played a much more intense drinking game that involved _Real Housewives_ and Nayeon puked first.) Tzuyu and Dahyun are roommates because Chaeyoung lives close enough to campus that she didn’t need to move at all and, yeah, Nayeon figures she never realized how lucky she was to be put in the same room as Sana and not some total weirdo.

Because sometimes, Sana feels like she was tailored to be the perfect fit for Nayeon. It’s a selfish thought, really, because Sana was made to be no one but her own and Nayeon is simply lucky enough that their lives have been intertwined. Because Sana is whimsical and can turn a textbook excerpt into poetry if she tried, because she gives off the warmth of a thousand suns and fills Nayeon’s chest with a type of brightness she never thought possible, because she’s wonderful and magical and _beautiful_. God, she’s so beautiful that sometimes Nayeon feels like she’ll explode if she doesn’t say as much. Sometimes, Nayeon does say it. Sometimes, when they’re leaving the campus 7/11 and Sana is still painted in the fluorescent lights of the store and has her hands full with too many snacks because she refuses to buy a plastic bag, Nayeon says _you’re beautiful_ and it comes out amidst a giggle and Sana rolls her eyes because she thinks Nayeon is joking. She still says it back, says _you’re beautiful too_ and Nayeon laughs, because she thinks she’s joking. (She ignores the knot in her throat that bubbles up and begs to be let out, the one that would untangle into the words _I’m in love with you_ , because Sana is just joking.)

Sometimes, in the dead of night when the world is asleep and the shadows flicker along the walls like they’re taunting her, Nayeon wonders if Sana is afraid of anything. Nayeon wonders if the girl she calls her roommate has anything that shakes her to her core and leaves her vulnerable for more than a fleeting moment before it’s washed down with an easy smile. Nayeon wonders, because Sana has never exuded anything but confidence and wisdom and bravery and Nayeon wonders and wonders and wonders, if that is the most terrifying part of it all. She knows Sana, understands her in ways she’s never understood anybody else in the world, but there’s something about her that will always leave Nayeon wondering. There’s something that trails behind her like a haze of mystery, follows her everywhere because, as much as Sana tries to lay things flat on the table, her habit of speaking cryptically when she attempts to unbottle her emotions–the ones that make your fingers twitch if you think about them for too long, the ones that make your heart pump uncomfortably quick—it leaves everything she says up in the air and sometimes Nayeon wonders if even her closet friends understand what she truly feels about anything. It’s easy to fill in the blanks, easy to know what kind of person she is and make presumptions about what the intentions behind her words are, but to truly understand, to fully dissect each syllable and swallow the true meaning behind them, Nayeon wants nothing more.

She thinks about this when she can’t sleep, because Sana is always on her mind, but so seldomly does she allow herself to think about what bits of Sana she doesn’t have, because Sana gives so much of herself and to think of anything else feels selfish. She feels guilty when she wakes up, like she did something wrong by merely thinking of Sana as anything other than utterly put together in the clumsiest way possible. Because she is, put together, that is. Because of all the people Nayeon knows, she thinks Sana must be the one that knows exactly what she wants in a way Nayeon desperately craves, and Nayeon knows Park Jihyo.

She decides to ask Sana that night, because they’re at a bar and she’s a little tipsy and they’re both absolutely high off of the liberation of finishing their essays after sleepless nights and it slips off her tongue before she can stop it.

“What’s your biggest fear?” Nayeon asks before she takes a sip the alcohol in her glass to sterilize her throat after speaking words that may as well be considered dirty. Sana looks at her with amusement swirling in her eyes in a way that makes Nayeon dizzy.

“Spiders,” Sana answers, Nayeon scoffs. Sana has been freeing spiders from their dorm room since the day they met.

“Honesty hour,” Nayeon declares. “What’s your biggest fear?”

Sana keeps looking at her, has her eyes locked on Nayeon’s like she’s searching for something and Nayeon wishes she could just say, _take it, whatever you need,_ but she doesn’t. She waits, instead. Sits patiently and waits for Sana to finish searching because she thinks waiting lifetimes would be worth it, just to get one thought from Sana’s brain of intricacies.

Sana opens her mouth to speak— Nayeon leans closer because Sana is so terribly magnetic— she goes to speak, but nothing comes out because in the next instant someone is colliding with Nayeon’s back and she feels something cold and wet seep into her bones. Sana is up in the flash of an eye, pushing the absolutely _wasted_ boy off of Nayeon and quickly pulling her into the bathroom to begin soaking the beer off her shirt with paper towels. Nayeon feels more upset at the loss of Sana’s answer than at the idea of her favourite sweater being ruined. Then she begins to laugh, for reasons unbeknownst to her, even worse for Sana who looks at her like she’s grown a second head, but Nayeons laughs until her ribs ache because something about it feels so incredibly funny and Sana can’t help but laugh along.

“Did he knock his glass on your head, or something?” Sana asks through a gentle smile. Nayeon looks at her, thinks she could say it now, too, _I love you,_ and it would be okay. She doesn’t.

“Or something,” she says instead, and Sana rolls her eyes fondly, and Nayeon grins. Sana gives the older girl her hoodie and tells her to change out of her shirt because, _I hate the smell of beer,_ and Nayeon complies because she does too.

They decide to walk home, because what other brilliant idea would two drunk girls have? Sana loves the feeling of night, she had told Nayeon as much early into their friendship and, at the time, Nayeon didn’t know what night _felt_ like. She does now, though, walking with her hand in Sana’s, understands the feeling of being far away from the world, and the feeling of a blanket of darkness, and the vacant serenity that allows you to fill the air with thoughts that the daylight has no place for. She thinks she loves the feeling of night too, almost as much as she loves the girl that introduced it to her. There’s music playing somewhere in the distance, from one of the bars that has become a soft hum in the background as they continue on their wobbly path, and Sana swings their hands to the beat. Then, in a moment of boldness, she twirls Nayeon like they’re in the middle of a dance floor and not walking along cracked pavement in the dead of night. Nayeon laughs, loud and free and her heart hammers in her chest as she hears Sana laugh too. The taller girl dips her gently, and Nayeon lets her, tilts her head back and revels in the feeling of her hair dipping low, almost enough to touch the ground, feels Sana giggle against her neck and then she opens her eyes and the sight of Sana, only Sana, against the night sky littered with stars leaves her in awe. Sana pulls her up, then, looks at her for a long moment and the amusement slowly washes away from her face in waves. They keep walking.

“Disappointing.” It comes out soft and timid and Nayeon could pass it off as the wind rustling in the tree branches if she didn’t feel Sana’s hand tense in hers for a moment. Nayeon squeezes back, encouraging and supporting and she wonders, for a moment, if it would’ve been easier to believe that Sana had no fears at all. “I’m terrified of disappointing.”

It feels like a punch to the gut, Sana’s admission. She doesn’t quite have the words to console her, isn’t sure how to heal the wounds of someone you thought to be untouchable. So, she pulls Sana close by their conjoined hands, keeps her grip firm until they get back to the dorm and then she pulls Sana into her bed and holds her as she cries. She wonders if it’s her fault, for a moment, wonders if the tears staining her pillow are because she asked the wrong question in her selfish mission to understand the heart of Minatozaki Sana. But she knows, somewhere she knows, that Sana can dance around the truth like a ballerina trained from the womb, that she can tiptoe on the line of total honesty while giving you absolutely no information at all, that, if she wanted, she could’ve given Nayeon a beautifully veiled, half-truth and Nayeon would’ve accepted it as nothing less. Then she realizes Sana wanted to be honest, fully, truly honest for once and Nayeon thinks a few of her own tears drip down to mix in the pool of sorrow that’s accumulated on her bed.

It feels a lot like something new. Nayeon wonders if anything between her and Sana will ever get old.

\----------

Nayeon met Chaeyoung on the first day of classes. They both sat at the back of their shared Intro to Political Science course and Nayeon vividly remembers thinking Chaeyoung must’ve painted her pants herself. (She did, Nayeon would later find out.) They became fast friends, which Nayeon realized must’ve been easy for anyone when it came to Chaeyoung, because she was quite literally the easiest person to talk to that Nayeon had ever met. Through Chaeyoung, she met Dahyun and Tzuyu, and she introduced them to Jeongyeon and Jihyo, who introduced the five to Mina and Momo. Sana too, but Nayeon was already well-acquainted with her. They became friends relatively quickly, the nine of them, but Nayeon still finds herself gravitating toward Chaeyoung in moments like these, where she needs someone easy, someone to just _be_ with.

Chaeyoung pulls out a jar of weed and her grinder twenty minutes after Nayeon arrives and she can’t help but laugh at how the girl just knew exactly what she needed.

Nayeon thinks it’s easier like this, when her brain is swimming in smoke and her thoughts are guided from one destination to the next with a fluidity she doesn’t think she’ll ever have when she’s sober. She says as much out loud and Chaeyoung lets out a laugh before clipping the joint. Chaeyoung’s always been able to read her better than she can read herself, so it’s no surprise when the laughter fades and she brings up the elephant in the room in the gentlest way possible.

“What’s up?” She asks, gives Nayeon a choice and Nayeon thinks this is exactly why she came to Chaeyoung in the first place.

“What do I do, Chaengie?” Nayeon sighs. Chaeyoung pulls her head into her lap and Nayeon doesn’t protest.

“About?”

“Sana.”

“Mhm.”

“I think I’m in love with her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you want to do about it?” Chaeyoung asks as she runs her fingers through Nayeon’s hair. Nayeon looks up at her, sees nothing in her eyes other than love and concern and she lets her eyes slip shut. She feels safe.

“I want to tell her.”

“What’s stopping you?”

Nayeon sits up, looking at Chaeyoung like she’s crazy because _obviously_ she can’t tell Sana because, well… because, it’s obvious! She can’t tell her because…

With each second of silence, Chaeyoung simply watches her curiously, knowing smile playing on her lips that never teeters to the edge of cruel, just stays there to let Nayeon know that she knows the answer, is waiting for Nayeon to figure it out. And she does. She lays back down.

“Oh.”

“That was quicker than I expected, to be fair,” Chaeyoung adds, like it’ll make Nayeon feel better. It does, kind of, because her mind is still swimming, and she thinks she can feel Chaeyoung’s kindness radiating from her in waves. Her revelation doesn’t change anything, mostly because it’s not a revelation and is more just her verbalizing what she always knew. She doesn’t make a mad dash from Chaeyoung’s house back to campus to profess her love for Sana because her head is still pleasantly cloudy and Chaeyoung’s snack creations are too good to miss out on and Nayeon feels comfort in knowing that Sana will be at the dorm when she gets back.

She is; at the dorm, that is. Nayeon wakes up at ten p.m. on Chaeyoung’s couch and her neck hurts and her phone is dinging and she notices Chaeyoung curled up in the recliner before she notices the notifications on her phone.

She slips out the door while she texts Chaeyoung a _thank you_ topped off with a smiley face and then responds to Sana’s concerned texts with a gentle roll of her eyes. Her heart flutters with each step as she realizes what she’s about to do, what she’s finally going to release from her heart like a caged dove waiting for its moment. She doesn’t feel nervous, or that’s what she tells herself, because she mulls over the words she hasn’t said, the ones she’s wanted to say so desperately over the past half a year and thinks this is just a long time coming.

The dorms are quiet when she gets back, nobody on the sidewalk, in the halls. She lets out shaky breath and pushes her key into the lock and when she sees Sana, she feels a fire ignite somewhere inside of her and knows this was something she could never escape, something that would happen no matter how hard she tried to avoid it.

Sana looks up at her when she nudges the door open, greets her with a smile (Nayeon counts one.) She watches her from her place on her bed and is about to say something, but Nayeon opens her mouth first.

“Determinism.” It comes out firm and clear as she clicks the door shut behind her. “I’ve decided.”

Sana smiles (two,) like she half-knows what Nayeon is going to say and half-has-no-fucking clue. Nayeon steps forward anyway.

“I realized, if I had to choose, I pick determinism.”

“Why?” Sana stands, but she doesn’t move any closer. She’s letting Nayeon choose. Nayeon knows the choice has been made even before her feet force her closer.

She feels her pulse thudding in her throat, feels her fingers curling into fists at her side, filled with barely contained emotion that is threatening to bubble over messily onto the floor between them if she doesn’t control herself. She looks at Sana and remembers that this is the girl who has given her nothing to fear, who has allowed her to love in silence without the worry that she would not be loved back, because even in this moment, even if Nayeon thinks she’s figured out a small fragment of what constitutes as _Sana,_ there is the possibility that she will be rejected and she thinks she’s still okay with it. Because loving Sana is beautiful, it’s bright and warm and it feels like home, and she knows Sana loves her, too, in some way, in whatever way the sun can love the people she gives warmth to.

“Because I think, when I _really_ think, I think that this, us, it’s a culmination of events that I had barely even realized until recently.” Sana smiles (three,) nods for Nayeon to continue. “We both lost games to our best friends and were forced to leave our roommates up to fate,” she steps closer. “I was always bitter that I puked first, but now I wonder if it was meant to happen. Because I met you,” the words feel clumsy and unpracticed and she wished, just for a moment, that she could embody half the eloquence that Sana carries around like it’s part of her. “Because you’ve shown me things I never thought possible, you’ve made me feel things I’ve never understood, and I’ve tried so hard to keep that to myself, to pretend like I didn’t desperately need to say it. That’s when I realized,” she says as she wraps her fingers in Sana’s, “it was never up to me,” she shrugs. Sana smiles, Nayeon counts four. “So, I changed my answer. I think determinism is the only way to explain the inevitability of the fact that I am completely, undoubtedly in love with you, Sana.”

For once, Sana doesn’t have words. Nayeon feels butterflies tickling her ribcage when Sana pulls her in for a hug, feels her thundering heart as Sana speaks directly against her ear.

“I was wondering how long you would take, Miss-Free-Will.”

Sana’s eyes are twinkling in the way Nayeon loves, like there were stars placed delicately in her gaze, and she wants to kiss her more than anything in the world. She doesn’t, though, doesn’t have a chance because Sana leans forward and connects their lips first and Nayeon thinks she could drown in the affection that she feels flowing through her veins.

“I love you back,” Sana says against her lips. Nayeon tips her head back in a laugh and laughs harder still when Sana presses a quick kiss to her neck.

It feels new and exciting but comfortable in a way that has settled into the cracks between her and Sana since the day they met and she thinks she was right, earlier, that everything was meant to lead up to this moment and she thinks she’s more than okay with it.

(“I lied to you, kind of,” Sana admits when they’re lying in Nayeon’s bed later that night, when the moon is getting sleepy and the sun is beginning to stir. “When you asked my biggest fear.” Nayeon traces patterns on Sana’s palm as she listens carefully. “My biggest fear was disappointing you. That’s why I never told you how I felt.” Nayeon looks up at her and sees nothing but honesty, she feels something unfamiliar swarm her chest and she pulls Sana impossibly closer.

“Do you trust me?” She asks timidly.

“Completely.”

“Then believe that you have nothing to be afraid of. I’m here, I’ll always be here.”

“I really do love you.”

Nayeon’s lost count of her smiles tonight.

“I really do love you, too.”)

**Author's Note:**

> i'm pretty horrible with endings, but i hope this did the rest of the story justice. this was the product of me writing instead of studying and it was meant to just end after the first or second little section, but turned into this so! i hope you enjoy and, as always, kudos and comments are appreciated :)


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